The Flywheel

Next Meeting: Friday, January
11

Report on our Madagascar Project

Our own Liliane Koziol discusses this
international project between the Richmond Rotary Club
District 5160 and the Rotary Club Antananarivo-Ivandry
district 9220 in Madegascar.

The project was a funding
collaboration between two clubs to help provide medical
equipment, furniture and a solar-water heater to the
Centre Hospitalier de District de Niveau II of Itaosy,
Antananarivo Madagascar.

Meeting of Friday, February
7

Welcome, Invocation, Thought for the Day

Richmond Rotarians and their guests gathered at the
Chevron cafeteria after successfully finding Chevron
Way and the Main Gate (not Gate 14 on Castro St.). Notable
for who was not there, we can only speculate on how many
Rotarians besides Jon Lawlis did not
remember to bring a photo ID as required for entry. Several
Rotarians used their Rotary connections and chutzpah
to enter even though they did not sign up or signed up
as little late, like one hour before the event. As we
ate a hearty pipe fitter’s lunch of Chicken-in-Sauce
(a Rotarian was heard to say, “I don’t think
it’s glutton free), Prez Alan Baer called
the meeting to order and introduced Rotarian and today’s Host,
Heather Kulp, Community Relations Manager for
the Chevron Richmond Refinery. Heather welcomed everyone
to refinery, gave an over view description of the program
and tour and introduced her Community Relations
colleague Andrea Bailey, known
to several Rotarians from her work with GRIP (Greater
Richmond Interfaith Program). Heather also introduced
our two program leaders and guides for the day, Chemical
Engineer Tim Burchfield (Texas A&M)
and Electrical Engineer Dan Beaton (Cal
Poly SLO, Go Mustangs!). Your
editor notes that these two bright eyed and bushy-tailed
young men, who make a lot of environmentally important
things happen every day, gave me pause to think that
today’s bright and beautiful day had something
to do with their engineering as well as the good weather.
But then I remember the Southland in the ‘50s when
clouds of asphalt smoke blew across Sepulveda Blvd. in
Torrance and the hydrogen sulfide actually did make you
gag. Things do change, sometimes for the better. We can
only hope that Heather encourages Tim and Dan to come
to Rotary from time to time.

So Tim and Dan gave a 25 minute talk about what happens
to a barrel of Alaskan or Middle Eastern light crude
that arrives at the Long Wharf and eventually leaves
the refinery as either 1)75% of the jet fuel used at
Bay Region airports; 2)25% of the ‘California’ gasoline
used by the N. Calif. vehicle fleet; 3)100% of any of
the lubricating oils made on the West Coast. More on
this later under Program. That tour included a but trip
around the entire refinery with non-stop descriptions
form Tim who may have lost his voice because the bus
PA system did not work.

Visiting Rotarians

Mac Lingo, Berkeley Rotary

Rotarians with Guests

Jim Young brought his lovely wife Linda who unsuccessfully
tried to restrain talkative Mark and Stony with ‘teacher
dirty looks’ directed at their ‘back of the
bus’. Liliane Koziol brought her handsome husband
Ken. Nabil Wahbeh brought his guest John Cola. Jim Klaczak
was Henry Moe’s guest. Michael Gill brought his
work associate Julie Boyer. Betsy Raymond was Margaret
Morkowski’s guest and Jan Faegley came as the guest
of Jerry Faegley who didn’t come because he was
busy selling houses.

Sunshine Report

It was a very nice day at the refinery, but no Sunshine
Report.

Announcements

Fun-seeking members of the I-80 Rotary clubs (aka "BARSHEEP")
are invited to Playland-Not-At-The-Beach Museum
of Fun, on Thursday, February 10, 2011.
Admission of $20 includes wine, beer, cheese and
other snacks, and of course, socializing with members
of these other clubs. Another good reason— play
the historic pin-ball and arcade games, included
in price of admission. See the flyer for
more details

Special Events

This tour is the special event.

Recognitions

None today although it was nice to see Erle
Brown’s daughter Lisa at
the lunch as she works in the refinery’s Capital
Projects unit.

Happy and Sad Dollars

None today.

Happy and Sad Dollars & Recognitions:

Stoney told a funny joke about a man
who finds out he only has 12 hours to live. He makes love
to his wife twice. When he asks to do it one more time,
she says “Hey, I gotta get up in the morning.” (Guess
you had to be there.)

Beav got a donation out of David Brown
and informed him that it was now time for a colonoscopy.

Paul Allen celebrated a new band that
he established at his children’s school.

Norm’s Nonsense

This guy was on the beach in San Francisco shooting seagulls
with a shotgun and putting them in a bag, when a cop arrested
him and told him it was against the law to kill seagulls. The
guy explained, "But I am homeless and these seagulls are
the only food I have to eat."
Cop: "I'm taking you in and you can tell it to the Judge."

After
hearing the shooter's tale of woe, the Judge said, "I'm
going to let you go with a warning. You can't kill any wildlife
in the city limits." Then the Judge got curious and asked, "Tell
me, what does a seagull taste like?"
Guy: "It's sort of a cross between a bald eagle and a
spotted owl."

PROGRAM of January 28

Tour of the Chevron Richmond Refinery

Started in 1902 as Pacific Refining and currently at
3,000 acres the Chevron Richmond Refinery is the largest
and oldest continuously operating economic enterprise
in Richmond and West County, maybe the entire county.
For this program report there will be a lot of bullet
point factoids.

The old days at the refinery are marked by the two,
turn of the last century brick administration buildings
on Chevron Way which used to be the ‘main drag’ and
public street to the San Rafael Ferry Terminal. In those
days the refinery was at this south end of the property
right next to Point Richmond. Over the century as the
refinery grew and modernized, it has moved north toward
San Pablo Bay and away from its nearest neighbors. On
the tour we passed by the 10 story unfinished hulk of
the Hydrogen Project where 1,200 highly paid and highly
skilled works were building a much better solution for
the refinery’s hydrogen feed stock which is essential
to the process of converting low value hydrocarbons into
high value transportation fuels. I mentioned that Dante-ian
scene from the 1950s refinery belt in the LA basin. Chevron’s
current hydrogen generator is from that same era, the
Depression and WWII. At 70+ years old, it was build before
Don Hardison’ joined Rotary. It is strange that
in the name of ‘environmentalism’ an inefficient
and potentially easy to break (compared to new) high
energy chemical processing facility is considered more
acceptable than a brand new $1B+ piece of machinery that
will reduce fuel consumption (read reduce greenhouse
gases) and reduce manufacturing cost pressure on end
product production (read your gasoline and jet fuel)
and provide cleaner air in the Bay Region for generations
to come. What’s up with that? But then we are getting
rid of plastic bags at all the taqueria’s on 23rd
Street. Symbolic solutions vs. real problems. Which is
better for Richmond and the Bay Region?

Like the mothballed Hydrogen Project and the 3,000 acres
it sits on, everything about the refinery is big. The
tour showed us an industrial landscape where things are
made, a landscape along with value added productivity
that is now rare in America. Other Factoids about the
refinery include:

Safety is Job #1. This was said so many times and
in so many places, it must be true. It was especially
emphasized on the most dangerous part of the tour,
going up and down the steps of the tour bus.

Chevron employees 10,000 people in the Bay Region
including their global HQ in San Ramon. 1,200 people
work at the refinery in 9 different operating companies.
It was noticed that there were almost no workers
anywhere in the refinery area during the tour. This
is because the general, work force works a 10 hour
day, four days a week M-Th. The work day is from
6 AM to 4 PM and every weekend is a three day weekend.

If I got this right, the Long Wharf is the longest
wharf on the West Coast at 1 mile. It can simultaneously
service four tankers and two barges which is an economic
advantage for Chevron because they can turn their
fleet of West Coast tankers faster than any other
refinery in the region. All crude oil passes over
the long wharf as Chevron receives no crude via pipe
or rail car. Guide Tim said Chevron has never received
crude oil via pipe, when asked if they refine oil
from the Central Valley.

The refinery processes 240,000 barrels of oil a
day (1 barrel = 42 gallons), 365 days a year, ‘24/7’.
The refinery is one of five refineries in the world
that makes ‘California gasoline’ which
is a special concoction mandated by the State to
reduce air pollution. It also supports Chevron markets
in the Pacific Northwest, Southern California and
Hawaii.

The refinery is a high efficiency, high value refinery
compared to most similar facilities around the world.
It converts 97% of crude oil input into transportation
fuels and lubricating oil compared to 40% conversion
at most other refineries.

The on-site cogeneration plant produces 100 Mega
Watts of electricity and process steam for the distillation
and cracking processes.

Guide Tim was particularly proud of the reverse
osmosis tertiary water reclamation facility on site
that allows most water to be recycled as process
water and what is discharged to the Bay to meet all
federal and state discharge standards.

Guide Tim pointed out the refinery’s flaring
towers, five of them as we approached the Rod & Gun
Club. He said to look at them now because they are
hard to see from far away since the refinery had
reduced flaring 97% since 2007. The flares are used
as a controlled burn of high pressure oil and gas
when there is a dangerous incident, power or machinery
failure that could create a more dangerous fire in
equipment. Chevron abandoned the industry practice
of ‘flaring’ low value by-product years
ago and instead uses its high efficiency operation
to convert it to marketable high value products.

There was a lot to see and hear about. You should of
been there! Thank you Heather Kulp and Chevron, for a
hearty lunch and great special program.

- Rotating Editor, Jim Young

Upcoming Programs

February 18
Rotary’s own bon vivant, Ralph Hill, regales
us with stories of his year-longg adventure circling
the globe on the Liberty Ship Arthur P. Davis during
World War II.

February 25
Seoin Moon, RI Ambassadorial Scholar from South
Korea and student at the California Maritime Academy,
shares insights into global trade.

March 3
The Counsel General of Indonesia visits Richmond Rotary.

March 11
Learn about the International House, at Cal, a venerable
East Bay institution with a historic mission.

March 18
Prof. Kirk Boyd, Director of The 2048 Project,
discusses the evolution of human rights and efforts
to draft and International Bill of Human Rights.

March 25
The America's Cup Race is coming to a bay near you!
Mark Howe presents an overview of its history
and potential benefits for Richmond.

April 4
Herb Behrstock, president of the East Bay Chapter of
the United Nations, visits Richmond Rotary. Topic
TBA.

Have a suggestion for a speaker?
Please pass along the name and contact information
to Jim Young.